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‘And Jack?’
‘Jack will be told, this evening. I promise.’
‘Poor Jack,’ Magda murmured, banging cupboard doors in the kitchen as she searched for the teapot. She knew where it was kept. She knew this first-floor flat inside out, but her brain didn’t seem to be working. She couldn’t think straight.
‘Poor Jack,’ she murmured again. ‘Poor Stan.’
Poor Magda, said the little voice in her head but she ignored it. This was Stan’s and Jack’s tragedy. Not hers.
Teapot found, she somehow made a passable drink and then sat with Stan while they made small talk, as if nothing had happened.
And all the while, Magda’s heart was breaking.
At last, unable to bear the surreal atmosphere any longer, she got to her feet and said goodbye.
She’d reached the door before Stan called out to her: ‘You said you had something to tell me, too, Magda.’
Magda opened her mouth and then shook her head. ‘Don’t worry. It was nothing important.’
FIFTEEN
JACK
Even reciting pi under his breath wasn’t working this evening. Jack gave up mumbling the mathematical constant and took a deep, shuddering breath. He was standing on the quayside and everything smelled of fish.
A small fishing boat was setting out for the night, and he watched it pass by, stepping back as a wash of water topped the wall and puddled on the stone.
It must be wonderful to be alone on the ocean, under a dark sky – netting fish, staring at the stars and escaping the harsh reality that waited on shore.
He was filled with a sudden urge to throw himself onto the deck and beg the fishermen to take him with them. Perhaps an expedition on the high seas would drown out the news that his father had just shared. The news that seemed to be strangling him.
Jack swallowed painfully and glanced at Driftwood House, sitting high on the cliff. It was glowing in the light of the dying sun and next to it stood a smudge of white, the marquee that on Saturday would host Rosie’s reception.
People would celebrate while he mourned the impending loss of his father, and the end of his marriage.
Why was Miri coming to see him? Jack wondered for the umpteenth time. Might she really be having second thoughts about their separation?
Losing Miri and Archie was so hard and now he was losing his father too. He would, in effect, be abandoned.
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Jack murmured, aware he was being over-dramatic. ‘You’re born, you live, you die.’
Cells were generated and cells broke down. His father was ill and his father was going to die. Just as Jack would die one day, and Archie.
He shook his head. Thinking of his son’s demise really wasn’t helping, even though dying was inevitable and, putting emotions aside, simply a scientific process that everyone had to go through.
Alyssa was right, he decided, pacing up and down the quay. Reality did suck at times so no wonder she immersed herself in fantastical tales of the past. Perhaps that was her escape? Though he had no idea what she’d be escaping from. He knew virtually nothing about her, except she’d lived in Devon for the first five years of her life, and she clearly had some sort of medical training. She’d taken charge after his father had fallen, as if she knew exactly what to do.
Jack stared across the sea, watching the fishing boat chug further away from land. Seagulls swooped and screeched above the churned water, following the vessel towards the horizon.
‘Hello,’ said a voice in his ear.
Jack looked around. Alyssa was standing behind him, in a pink sundress that she’d covered with a green cardigan. The cardi was baggy and misshapen, as though it had been washed a hundred times.
‘Hello. Where did you come from?’
‘Magda’s.’ She nodded towards his aunt’s cottage that stood next to the ice-cream parlour. ‘I wanted to see her but the kitchen door was locked, so I’d nipped round to knock on her front door. Then I spotted you and you looked—’She stopped talking and bit her lip.
‘I looked what?’
